Can I connect to a MySQL database from an iOS iPad app?
Not directly. You’ll have to have a TCP Socket or HTTPSocket connect to a ‘service’ that does the communicating with the database. There are a couple of these floating around but don’t remember the specifics.
My favorite is a PHP class, ArrestDB, that will connect to MySQL and send the query results as JSON.
JSON is very easy to use in iOS.
https://github.com/ilausuch/ArrestDB
Monkeybread also has a solution for this using a Xojo WebApp.